Morning

Consciousness returned slowly.
Tossing and turning fitfully, Jay eventually rolled over and, with a start, realised that he was alone in bed, at which point, the horrible nightmare of his reality came crashing back in on him
She was dead
She was dead, just like yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that...
Groaning, he rolled over onto his back and raised his hands to his pounding head. There was a small square of gauze taped there and it took a while before a little piece of the previous night tumbled back into place: Cass had done that
He gingerly probed her handiwork with his fingertips.
It felt tender beneath the dressing, although, to be honest, it was hard to differentiate between the throbbing of cut on his temple and that of his hangover; both of which seemed to pulse, hideously, with each beat of his heart
Letting his hands fall, he gave the empty space next to him a mournful look and rolled over to swing his legs out of bed, only belatedly realised that he was still fully clothed as he sat up with a painful lurch
Toilet. Water. Painkillers
Pushing himself up, Jay staggered through into the en-suite and then, a moment later, out into the dimly lit main living area, where to his surprise, he found Cassandra asleep on the sofa, beneath the spare duvet
She looked at peace when she was asleep; like an angel
Quietly running a glass of water in the kitchenette, Jay rummaged in one of the cupboards and extracted some painkillers, which he downed with his water before running another glass, with the intention of retreating to back to bed and feeling sorry for himself
Max, though, had other ideas; and with his familiar thud as he jumped out of bed and the thunder of tiny feet, he banged through into the living room, making Jay wince at the prospect of having to look after an energetic four year old with his worst hangover in living memory
“Dad, Dad!”
The exuberant noise made Cass stir, and for a moment Jay didn’t want her there; this was private –Max, him and Katrina. Family stuff.
“Yay!” Max cheered “Cass is still here!”
Jay’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, making his head throb painfully That was unexpected
Muzzily emerging out from beneath the duvet, Cass waved a mute hello
“I wasn’t expecting you to stop over” Jay croaked
“You were that bad last night, I figured you might need someone around when Max woke up; do you want to go back to bed?”
“Look what we made!” Max beamed proudly up at his father as a dog sized, six legged mechanical horror scuttled out of the boy’s bedroom. Max had painted a big smiley face on the front of its segmented black carapace in drippy yellow paint
“Is that...?” Jay began
“Slaved through Holly and one hundred percent safe for Max” Cass nodded “Of course, it’ll kill anything that tries to hurt him”
“Shit” Jay shook his head, recollecting only a little too late that parent’s don’t generally use that kind of language
“I’m going to be a mad scientist when I grow up” Max said proudly “I’m going to create a zombie plague that wipes out humanity!”
“Urgh, Jeez...” Jay downed his water and flopped limply down into one of the chairs in the room, allowing Max to scramble up onto his lap “Where did all this come from?”
“I got a new joke as well” the boy continued “What do you call a crab with one claw?”
Jay frowned “Dunno mate,” he croaked, wishing the painkillers would hurry up and kick in “what do you call a crab with only one claw?”
“A customer!”
Bewildered, Jay looked between Max and Cass in the silence that followed
Cass raised her eyebrows “That works on so many levels”
Looking back at Max, Jay grinned in spite of himself “Brilliant joke!”
“Yeah!” Max triumphantly wriggled down from his knee and scampered over to his toy box, beckoning the robot to follow him
“Are you sure that thing’s safe?” Jay asked as the machine skittered over to watch Max showing it how to clip Lego together
“Totally, but you can tell him it has to live outside if you want, or I can decommission it – Your choice”
Pursing his lips, Jay nodded mutely. His head hurt too much to come to any immediate decisions
“Anyway” Cass began “How’re you doing?”
“I feel like death warmed up”
“Wasn’t what I meant, but it’s hardly surprising. Go back to bed if you want. I’ll look after Max”
Jay shook his head “You’ve done enough already. Sorry for leaving him with you like that – I just needed a bit of time to myself”
“It’s fine” Cass shrugged dismissively “Besides, it could have been far worse. If you had gone out with Phil, chances are you’d still be missing”
Jay smiled ruefully “I guess there is that”
Raising her arms up over her head Cass stretched sinuously and cricked her neck “Urgh...” she groaned “This sofa’s not the comfiest”
“Yeah, tell me about it – I was on the damn thing for weeks”
“Ha” Cass smirked “I don’t know whether to be impressed or insulted by that”
Jay winced at this and looked away with a shake of his head, leaving Cass to briefly close her eyes and silently curse her impulsive retort “I’m sorry” she said after a moment “That was an offhand attempt at levity, nothing more”
Lost in thought, it was a while before Jay looked back up at her
“I need the Time Drive”
“I thought you would”
“Where is it?”
Her eyes met his for an instant
“It’s everyone’s ticket out of here, but I anticipated you’d want it, so I hid it before anyone got any big ideas”
“I need it”
“Yeah, don’t worry Jay, it’s yours” Cass sighed “I can’t see Brittany being out of my life forever, so there’ll be other time travel opportunities and other ways out of here. Just do me a favour and think really carefully about the consequences, eh?”
She glanced across the room at Max playing with the robot before turning back to regard Jay with a shake of her head
“The Time Drive will probably take a while longer to recharge. How about we find a planet with a breathable atmosphere and have a bit of down time? Spend a couple of weeks lounging around on a beach or something?”
“You go ahead” Jay murmured, his thoughts elsewhere “I’ve got to fix this”
“Fair enough” Cass said as she unfolded herself from the sofa and stood to stroll across the room and stand in front of the main monitor “Theoretically you’ve got all the time in the world, but do what you’ve got to do. If you need me to help, just ask; I'm there for you"
She turned to the monitor “Holly?”
The AI swam into view on the screen “Cor blimey, what’re you doing there at this time of the morning?”
“Don’t be stupid” Cass snapped “Keep your idle speculations to yourself, and just tell me where the nearest planet is with a breathable atmosphere. Preferably one that’s not an ice ball”
“Alright, alright, keep your hair on. One sec” Holly dodged off the screen only to return a moment later “Think I’ve got one about a week and a half away”
“That'll do. Plot a course and get us there”
“Right you are” the AI nodded and vanished from the screen only to be summoned back again a second later when Cass said “Oh, and Holly?”
“Yeah?”
“Give the place a full spectrum scan as we approach it. I don’t want any nasty surprises with any weird electromagnetic fields this time”
“Gotcha” Holly disappeared again, leaving Cass to turn back to Jay
“There you go. Time aplenty for everything” she strolled back across the lounge and flopped down on the sofa “You look awful. Get back to bed. I’ll look after Max”


<ooc>
We’re off to go and lounge around on a beach for a bit
Honest ;-)
Finish up what you’re on with and we’ll be on to the next thing in due course
</ooc>